Three Wise Men
A warm, witty and wise novel about love, friendship and being in your thirties.Gloria, Eimear and Kate have been friends since they were a trio of six-year-olds cast as the Three Wise Men in the nativity play.Twenty-five years on, they’ve left Omagh for Dublin and grown up to be Three Unwise Women, all too prone to misuse the gifts they’ve been given. Eimear’s beauty captivates men but robs her of independence. Kate’s dazzling wit blinds her to the consequences of betraying a friend. And Gloria’s urge to nurture, thwarted by infertility, threatens to destroy everything she holds dear.Aided and abetted in their misdeeds by the irresistible Jack, philandering poet and seducer extraordinaire, the troika find themselves putting their friendship to a test from which it may never recover.To this black comedy Martina Devlin brings a delightful lightness of touch, a turn of phrase to treasure, and three characters to take to your heart.
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MARTINA DEVLIN
THREE WISE MEN
For my parents, Frank and Bridie Devlin, who always make me feel the centre of their universe
CONTENTS
About the Publisher
Kate props an elbow on the ledge above the hand-basin and concentrates on drawing a steady line around her mouth with her new rust-coloured lip pencil. She’s slapping on the face she chooses to wear, as opposed to the one dumped on her by the arbitrariness of genes, for a rendezvous with Jack. And lip-liner is integral to the operation. She snapped up three pencils when she spotted them in Clery’s – plums are in vogue and you can’t find autumn shades to save your life. Not that lip-liner is technically a life-saver, but it comes a close second. It’s certainly giving her mouth the kiss of life.
Kate is preparing for her farewell to Jack’s arms, as well as the rest of him, and she can’t apply herself to the task until she applies her make-up. A woman has to look her best to do her worst to a man; imagine if he went home relieved. Like a lemming that couldn’t find a cliff.
Her lips are within half an inch of perfection when the phone rings, causing a painted-on wobble instead of a pout. She contemplates ignoring the source of the interruption, reconsiders when it strikes her the caller might be Jack changing the time they’re to meet, and bolts from the bathroom before the answering machine gobbles any message.
The caller is Mick, her friend Gloria’s husband, and he’s virtually incoherent. Kate has to make him repeat his story twice before she establishes that Gloria’s been rushed to hospital with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Whatever that is. It must have required the full ER team from Mick’s garble. Thirty-six hours without sleep are taking their toll on him. Kate, only barely assimilating the news, realises she’s still clutching her new lip-liner and grinding the pencil tip against the body of the phone. Bronze Babe is smeared between redial button and microphone. She and Gloria have been intimates for a million years, since they were cast as two of the three wise men in the Primary Two nativity play; another friend, Eimear, was the third.
‘Which hospital is Gloria in? I’ll go straight in to see her,’ she offers.
Mick advises against it, to Kate’s relief when she remembers her only way of contacting Jack to cancel is by catching him in the office – a call to his home is never an option. Not unless she’s intent on setting out the welcome mat for trouble.
‘Leave it for now, she’s still not able to have visitors: the tears start tripping her as soon as she lays eyes on me,’ says Mick. ‘They operated on her in the middle of the night and it’s been a massive shock. We didn’t even realise she was pregnant. I was too shaken to let you know sooner but Gloria’s just asked me to give you and Eimear a ring – I’ve already told her family. Eimear’s my last call, then I suppose I’ll head off and find something to eat. I haven’t much of an appetite, to be honest. You’ve no idea what a jolt this has been; it’s the first time I’ve had to phone an ambulance.’
Guilt pricks at Kate. She ought to volunteer to meet Mick for a drink, she’s known him even longer than Gloria and he sounds in a state, but she’s psyched up for her parting is such sweet sorrow number with Jack. And even if she doesn’t pull it off tonight she can plant the seeds … drop hints about how the end of the line is only a few stops away. In the meantime she can’t bring herself to renounce the euphoria of an evening spent in her lover’s company. Mick must have other friends who can keep an eye on him.
‘I’ll drop in to see Gloria before work tomorrow,’ she promises; and conscience salved after a few consolatory truisms, returns to her dating ritual preparations. Game on.
Kate knows she should feel restrained by Gloria’s hospitalisation but decency is purged by jubilation at the prospect of Jack’s undivided attention. Her reflection smiles giddily at her as a wave of exultation bubbles up from her diaphragm and catches in her throat. He drenches her with gladness, simply the thought of him makes her laugh aloud. It’s enough to be able to look at Jack, she wouldn’t object if there was never any touching. Actually, that’s a fib; she adores the stroking, but it’s not the alpha and the omega.
‘Listen to me with my Latin tags. I should forget about being a lawyer and think about being a friend,’ she reminds herself.
Kate’s aware – and only hazily concerned by the realisation – that she’s dwelling on the anticipatory pleasure of being with Jack without sparing a thought for Gloria, comatose and attached to a drip. She’ll make it up to her tomorrow; she’ll transform Gloria’s room into a bower. Meanwhile she should be plotting the direction her tryst with Jack will take.
